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Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

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Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#231

Post by carabiner »

emptybottle wrote: post #73

A good reminder to keep some warm blankets/coats/gloves/hats in your trunk, along with some non-perishable snacks and a first-aid kit & flashlight. Water is harder to store in the winter since it will freeze and burst containers if full, but snow can be melted given a container to put it in. Also a good to refuel often. I try treat 1/2 a tank as empty and stop accordingly. On longer trips it lines up well with bathro…

Specific recs:

Sleeping bag: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Coleman-0-F-Rectangular-Sleeping-...

Warm gloves: https://www.amazon.com/1927KW-L-1-Premium-pigskin-polyester-...

Warm hat: https://www.amazon.com/Minus33-Merino-Wool-Ridge-Beanie/dp/B...

Headlamp: https://www.amazon.com/Vont-Flashlight-Batteries-Headlight-H...

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#232

Post by stransky »

alistairSH wrote: post #192
vjust wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right on. I lived literally next to Dulles International Airport - ~8 miles. Yet, to get to Dulles (or Reston/Herndon) by Public transit, would've taken me 2 hours perhaps, or more.

Ha! I live in Reston and mapped out some options on Goole Maps... Home to IAD by car: 5 miles, 9 minutes Home to IAD by transit: 40+ minutes across 2 bus lines Home to IAD by foot: 10.9 miles, 3+ hours Home to WAS by car: 24 miles, 29 minutes Home to WAS by transit: 90+ minutes across 1 bus line, 2 Metro lines, and a few walking segments to link them. It's sad that walking to the airport is twice as far than driving.…

You forgot to include time to park.

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#233

Post by buybackoff »

oneplane wrote: post #95
guntars wrote: post #3

Link for people that DO want megabytes of tracking Javascript and, you know, media: https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/04/weather/winter-weather-tuesda...

I was actually about to comment that I had forgotten about the light (or 'lite' as they like to commercially re-spell it since the 1950's) version and was pleasantly surprised that it works as expected.

This page made me smile almost like when I had only started to use internet. Expected to see such a subthread before wanting to post similar.

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#234

Post by binaryblitz »

cure wrote: post #223
emptybottle wrote: post #73

A good reminder to keep some warm blankets/coats/gloves/hats in your trunk, along with some non-perishable snacks and a first-aid kit & flashlight. Water is harder to store in the winter since it will freeze and burst containers if full, but snow can be melted given a container to put it in. Also a good to refuel often. I try treat 1/2 a tank as empty and stop accordingly. On longer trips it lines up well with bathro…

Good advice. I also keep a "Portable Car Jump Starter" in the trunk. These days they are basically big batteries (mine is ~3100mAh at 12V apparently) and they come with USB plugs and a built-in flashlight... Handy if you need to recharge your phone in a pinch.

Those are great to have. I will say that 3100mAh is pretty low and wouldn't even fully charge most smartphones. 20kmAh batteries can be purchased for less than $100, and 10k-15k mAh for less than $50.

A good idea to have just in case. :)

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#235

Post by acdha »

CountDrewku wrote: post #197
gumby wrote: post #27

Interesting to consider that the oil industry may have made a mistake by reframing “global warming” as “climate change”. Harder for people to see events like this as part of “global warning” while it is more understandable as a consequence of “climate change”

Where is the scientific proof that this isolated weather event is climate change? Just like you cannot claim that one day of bad weather refutes global warming you also cannot claim that an isolated event is climate change. It takes time to prove that. Getting tired of everyone spouting off about climate change every time bad weather occurs. It's just as anti-science as denial.

This is a common argument encouraged by the fossil fuel industry but it's not that simple. Climate science operates on a longer time scale so there isn't a single “We did it – Exxon, et al.” note to find but what you can talk about are the probabilities shifting (100 year floods become 20 year floods, etc.) and that tends to happen after most major events. For example, two noteworthy weather events this summer:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/07/pacific-northwest-he... https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/08/europes-july-floods-...

In this case, what I'd look at is whether this event is in line with what the climate scientists have been saying for decades, namely that we'd see more volatility and extreme weather events. This is especially compatible with predictions for the mid-Atlantic region which have called for more big snow events despite generally less snow on average. No, it's not definitive enough that you could use it in a criminal case but it tells anyone that cares to expect higher insurance rates, taxes, etc.

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#236

Post by alistairSH »

stransky wrote: post #232
alistairSH wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha! I live in Reston and mapped out some options on Goole Maps... Home to IAD by car: 5 miles, 9 minutes Home to IAD by transit: 40+ minutes across 2 bus lines Home to IAD by foot: 10.9 miles, 3+ hours Home to WAS by car: 24 miles, 29 minutes Home to WAS by transit: 90+ minutes across 1 bus line, 2 Metro lines, and a few walking segments to link them. It's sad that walking to the airport is twice as far than driving.…

You forgot to include time to park.

Fair enough, I always take a cab/Uber to IAD, as that cost is far less than the price of parking. And living so close to IAD, I try to fly out of it whenever possible (all work travel, 80% of pleasure travel).

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#238

Post by dugmartin »

Sounds like a mini version of Route 128 outside Boston after the "Blizzard of 1978". I wasn't there (I was experiencing the same blizzard in northern Illinois at the time) but the over 3,000 vehicles had to be rescued.

Lots of good pics here: https://www.boston.com/news/history/2018/01/29/photos-blizza...

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#239

Post by polygotdomain »

rayiner wrote: post #92
azylman wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No comments on emergency situations, but wanted to call out one thing: > You need additional highways (aka: additional offramps) to truly scale day-to-day traffic Additional highways are at-best a stop-gap for day-to-day traffic, never a solution, due to induced demand [1]. You really need large-scale investments in public transportation for this. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand#Effect_in_trans...

I grew up in Northern VA. Public transit here is a solution looking for a problem. The job centers and commercial are too spread out for public transit to make any sense. Most of the population and jobs in the DC metro area aren’t in DC but spread around in Tysons, Loudoun, Reston, Arlington, Bethesda, etc. The state spent billions building the Silver line out to Tysons, Reston, and Loudoun, and ridership was disappo…

I just want to say that the comments about public transport in DC are spot on. It's incredibly hard to design a system that can actually get people where they need to be because A) people are so spread out, B) everyone is going to different places, C) there is minimal incentive to make public transit better because costs completely outweigh potential ridership.

It's sad, but without a car in the DC area, your options are very minimal and you pretty much have to live in the city.

I lived in the DC area for nearly 30 years and moved out right as Covid hit, and have tried to use public transit at various points in my adult life. Unless you live super close to a metro stop and/or need to go to a metro stop the system will barely work for you, and even then you'll be hamstrung with where you can go and how long it will take you to get there.

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#240

Post by ufmace »

azylman wrote: post #138
nostromo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they're shifting the goal posts. Here in city (Seattle) most people drive because transit tends to be spotty and slow for most people. So, what's the solution? Make driving worse of course. Speedbumps everywhere . Change 4-lane roads to 2-lanes. Remove parking. Lower speed limits to absurd levels. Make through streets dead ends. Transit still mostly sucks, but now driving sucks too. Success! I love transit and…

> Here in city (Seattle) most people drive because transit tends to be spotty and slow for most people...So, what's the solution? Make driving worse of course. Speedbumps everywhere. Change 4-lane roads to 2-lanes. Remove parking. Lower speed limits to absurd levels. Make through streets dead ends. This is obviously not the solution that anyone is proposing. You're arguing in bad faith against a strawman. The solutio…

How is he arguing against a strawman? He's saying that's exactly what they actually did in his city.
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